I am beginning to think my yard is emitting some kind of weird force field, resulting in some very strange bird encounters – daily owl visits, eastern birds, hundreds of waxwings… And that’s just the last few weeks.
On one supremely frigid day last week, I noticed one of my cats in point position on his window ledge. Naturally, I had to get up and see what he was looking at.
Wowza! No wonder he was entranced.
I counted 15 black-billed magpies in this tree, which is a new yard record. A few years ago when I reported 8 magpies on the feeder watch checklist, I received the comment that was an unusually high number and was I sure of the total. They would be doing cartwheels over this.
I don’t really have any idea what the attraction was. Granted, I had put out a couple cups of dry dogfood on the deck earlier, but there was still some left when the sun went down.
In another of those corvid mysteries, the magpies congregated in this tree for a couple of hours. They sat quietly, not even talking to each other, and then slowly, individually or in pairs, drifted away.
And Buster slept through the whole thing.
How exciting!! They’re on the move…aren’t they?! Fantastic photos…and I really like the one of the Owl…he looks like your backyard mascot :-))